


Alone Together

by 0phidian



Series: Late Night Thoughts [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: I mean writing practice, Janus is mentioned several times but barely appears in the story, M/M, Romantic Dukexiety if you squint, There’s angsty angst and soft angst but this pretty much toes that line, implied abandonment issues, poorly written action scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25418512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0phidian/pseuds/0phidian
Summary: If today— or tonight, rather, was a person, then Virgil had the feeling that its life’s goal would be to find him, pin him to the floor, and strangle him.(This isn’t as soft as how the title makes it seem.)
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders
Series: Late Night Thoughts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1834642
Kudos: 25





	Alone Together

If today— or tonight, rather, was a person, then Virgil had the feeling that its life’s goal would be to find him, pin him to the floor, and strangle him.

First off, as far as he knew, today’s episode had been- well- he couldn’t think of a more intense word for “catastrophic”, but he couldn’t ask Logan either for several obvious reasons.

Second off, Virgil had spent the rest of the day panicking about how everyone was doing, then he decided to try and contact Thomas, then he realized that Thomas probably hated him. So he really couldn’t do that. After several hours of ruminating, he left his room and started pacing through the hallway. Which was _also_ a bad idea because he thought he could hear a really loud banging noise then some more subtle sounds, the first of which made him jump about a foot in the air.

So he decided to go to the Imagination and try to see if anybody was sulking there; from past experience, one Side in particular went there to cool off and fight (highly dangerous!) dragon witches or whatever. 

What Virgil _didn’t_ expect was to be almost annihilated by a multitude of golden strings. Janus’ web of lies. That was fairly obvious. He had grumbled, thinking, _What, Janus thinks he can use the Imagination for all his schemes or something now?_ His instincts were screaming at him to just high-tail it out of there— the whole purpose of today was to avoid confrontation!— but then he saw something, or rather _someone,_ else.

Remus really couldn’t have been more conspicuous than he already was.

So, against his better judgement, Virgil ran. He sprinted through the strings, flinching at the sight of bright purple strings that he really didn’t want to comprehend at that particular moment. Grabbing Remus’ free arm, he muttered, “ **You do not want to be in here right now.”** ” He froze for a moment— _he’d used his tempest tongue, why the hell would he do that?_ — then remembered. They needed to get out of there. Fast. Virgil turned around for a half second and noticed a silvery glint in the distance.

They had left Remus’ morning star behind.

Pushing his thoughts away, Virgil tried to reason that Janus must’ve seen Remus already, and besides, they needed to get to the Subconsc—

The Subconscious?

Well, the Light Side of the Mindscape wasn’t exactly the safest place to bring Remus. That or Virgil was lying to himself to make himself feel better, the prospect being something that he really didn’t want to think about.

He threw the door open, and within a millisecond, hundreds of memories flew back to him. But things were still obviously and uncomfortably different. The commons seemed to have been taken over by Virgil’s current companion, Janus having moved all his _screw society!_ posters and propaganda… well, wherever he’d decided to move them. Virgil didn’t plan on asking.

But the worn out couch was still the same. The clock with the tentacle arms was still there.

His old hoodie was still there.

Ignoring the prompt stab to his heart, Virgil plopped onto the couch like none of this was a huge deal. Remus, unexpectedly, sat on the other side of the couch instead of sitting far too close to him like he did before.

“Virgil,” Remus started out slowly, breaking the silence. The anxious Side shuddered, recognizing this as one of the creative Side’s tactics to create tension. Considering that Virgil had just dragged Remus halfway across the Imagination for seemingly no reason, that was _relatively terrifying._ “It’s great that you’re finally loosening up and being more spontaneous, but what the hell was that for? Did you talk to Deceit earlier? I was trying to find him before— what are you looking at? I swear I don’t have slime on my clothes anymore!”

Did Remus say Deceit?

“Nothing,” Virgil murmured, attempting to contort his face into one that looked less appalled. In a feeble attempt to change the topic, he said, “You’ve changed the place up, haven’t you?”

Remus’ eyes brightened. “Yeah! Do you like what I did with it? There’s a pile of eyes somewhere in— ...you know something, don’t you?”

“What?” Virgil asked, taken aback. In his moment of panic, he’d forgotten that you really couldn’t stop Remus once he’d decided on a conversation topic.

It seemed like he was in for the long haul.

“What do you know about Deceit?”

Virgil thought he’d detected a hint of pain in Remus’ expression, but the creative Side was back to donning his usual probing, maniacal grin in no time. He could’ve asked him anything. Like, why did Virgil run with him over to the Subconscious for seemingly no reason? Why didn’t he take him to the Light Side instead? How the hell are babies made?

“...Nothing,” he said suspiciously, eyeing the other’s face to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything.

“Oh, come _on,_ nobody ever tells me anything! I’m insane, not an idiot!” Remus whined. Inching far too close for comfort, he continued speaking as if he was oblivious to the fact that Virgil’s cheeks were slowly turning pink. “You can tell me! I’ve missed out on everything that’s happened today, and Double Dee won’t tell me _anything._ ”

“Look, there’s nothing here to say, so can we just drop the topic?” Virgil asked, praying to the pile of teeth in another corner of the room that both his minimal, unused lying skills and his (also) minimal white foundation were good at hiding things. “Janus probably just had a bad day!”

Only after the words came out of his mouth did Virgil realize that he _really_ shouldn’t have said that.

On the other hand, Remus still seemed to be processing that sentence. Backing away from the anxious Side, he repeated, “Janus?”

Virgil deemed the fact that Remus was speaking _softly_ a sign that this was a great time to panic.

He stared at his lap, nodding and hoping that Remus would get the message. He desperately wanted to sink out, hide under the blankets in his room, and ignore the situation for as long as possible, but something was telling him that that was a horrible idea for this particular situation.

“Can you stay?” Remus blurted out, completely contradicting Virgil’s instincts. “For the rest of the night. I can clear out the frogs in my room if you want me to! I—”

“Remus,” Virgil said, mostly to prevent the creative Side from going on a tirade of what was in his room. “Of course I can stay. We can rant about everyone else’s idiocies until morning or you can force me to look at whatever weird dissected animals you have, I dunno.”

Both of them heard the silent (and cheesy) addition: _Like we used to do._

“Great!” Remus grinned, nodding enthusiastically after a while. The awkwardness and tension was still quite evident, but the silence was becoming… oddly comforting, in a way. After that wore down slightly, though, Virgil’s mind drifted off elsewhere. He would still need to confront the others at some point, and they hadn’t resolved any problems that had been created— or rather revealed— earlier. 

Which wasn’t exactly ideal.

“Uhh, hello?” Remus’ voice broke through his thoughts. “I asked if you wanted to go to my room already.”

“Oh, er— yeah. Sure. I don’t mind,” Virgil responded awkwardly, standing up and following Remus to a far-too-familiar hallway.

Something that both of them had forgotten entirely in their false sense of security was that Janus lived in the Subconscious as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative title: practice for writing Virgil. Constructive criticism would be GREATLY ~~needed~~ appreciated! :DD


End file.
